Intel I/O Processor

[rmwhitt]

I pulled one of these http://www.cpushack.com/2009/01/19/cpu-find-of-the-day-intels-newold-io-processor/ a few weeks ago and got around to looking at it today. At first I thought it was flip chip because of the lid, but when I pulled the lid off, the silicon was flat w the board. The underside of the processor is filled with epoxy that is almost the same area as the lid and the thickness of the board. I broke it in half and can see the ends of gold wires in the epoxy. Has anyone processed any of these before? I assume based on the construction, that it would be close to NB chips in yield.

Thanks,
RMW

 

[patnor1011]

They are very different. What you said NB I think you meant north bridge BGA IC, they are much lighter than the one you pictured. BGA IC are without other metal apart from solder balls so much more pieces will fit in 1 kilogram. Pictured CPU is like many CPU's with epoxy with wires in it. I have no idea what they yield but you may be able to find some data on forum.

 

[Anonymous]

That chip is very similar in design to the black Pentium MMX processors. They share the epoxy base, and if you punch out the epoxy base you will see the same kind of processor package that you would expect on a ceramic Pentium chip.

The yields aren't bad but you need to combine a few processes in order to get all the gold out of these. If you search black/MMX/black fibre you'll get some good help.

Regards

Jon

Edit: Typo

 

[rmwhitt]

Thanks for the responses guys. I did not intend to imply that these weigh the same as a Northbridge, only that the thickness and area of the epoxied section of the 80303 is similar in thickness and area of the the black lids from a few northbridge BGA IC's that I have. I was guessing that the yield could be similar to a northbridge as the 80303 has a similar number of solder pads and the gold wires inside are likely similar in size.

Interestingly, I picked up a old dual processor Pentium II board, that contained two slot 1 Pentium II 300's upon removing these processors from the riser card, they are constructed the same as this I/O processor, and seem to have about the same area and thickness of epoxy when compared to the 80303.

I also noticed that the i/O chips on a few sun processor modules are also of this same construction. Albeit, much smaller in size.

 

[Anonymous]

I also noticed that the i/O chips on a few sun processor modules are also of this same construction. Albeit, much smaller in size.

Yes. Also worth noting that on some of the larger Enterprise boards there are more than 20 on each board.